Colour banding chickadees at the Hilliardton marsh

 

Blue banded black capped chickadee what does blue mean? Read on !

Years ago we were doing a special project for Kevin Hannah of the Canadian Wildlife Service. We had been asked to collect feathers from Common redpolls and pine and evening grosbeaks . Collecting feathers was to help with an isotope study they were doing  which allowed  from the particular isotope signature where the birds had been hatched. In addition to collecting the feather we placed a colour band on each birds leg as well as the numeric Canadian wildlife service band When we had visitors to the marsh they became very excited when they spied a colour band on a bird which lead us to start the colour banding project for chickadees at the marsh. 
     Chickadees for the most part are not migratory and besides dispersing for the breeding season they are very dedicated to feeders in the winter returning year after year. Every year for the past 6 years we have been putting a colour band on chickadees in addition to the metal Canadian wildlife Service band. The colour of the band signifies the year it was banded . 2021 is yellow, 2020 is green 2019 is white  going back to 2014 which is dark blue . When we started the project in 2017 we put colour bands on birds of known ages prior to 2017 allowing us to have coloured bands for birds  back to 2009 although the chance of seeing one of those birds is very remote. The age record for a banded black capped chickadee is  11 years 6 months and was originally banded in Minnesota May 5th 2002. You never know what the future may hold for one of these banded birds at the marsh.

Red is 2017

    The main advantage of having a colour banded bird is that it does not have to be recaptured to know the age o f the bird and visitors at the marsh take great delight in seeing flocks of  birds with different colour bands showing that the birds  are in social groups of different age classes. Colour banding birds gives us another layer of detail in encouraging the study of birds. Many researchers use a combination of  several different colour bands to allow them to identify individual birds  by sight. Our purpose was  to identify the ages of birds by sight and to get our visitors excited about continued chickadee research at the marsh.  

Recently we recaptured a bird with a blue band  another with a brown band and another with a red band 

Blue           Originally banded  October 28th 2014, interesting this bird was not recaptured at all in 2016 or 2019 but all of the other years. It is currently our oldest chickadee to date and   was  aged  as a hatching year bird when it was banded making it over 6 years in age 

Brown           Originally banded  Aug 14th 2015  banded as a hatching year bird and a little over 5 years  now.

Red   Originally banded August 17th 2017 as a hatching year bird  It has been recaptured 9 times since it was originally banded.

I mentioned in my last blog that we are also banding chickadees at the north end of the marsh and will continue doing that moving into the future as these birds were all unbanded revealing that it is a different flock then the birds using the south end of the marsh. it would be very interesting if one of these birds or any of the "marsh" birds might show up at someone's feeder in the area. If that is the case I certainly would like to hear about it. The colour band might draw more attention so hopefully i will be reporting some sightings in the future.

In 2018 one of our orange banded birds showed up in Allison Ontario unfortunately hitting a window. Every now and then chickadees seem to migrate. Technically these are called irruptions  and do not seem to happen in  regular cycle . We have noticed that we do not have many chickadees lingering with orange bands and feel it is perhaps because they wandered  far away from the marsh.

yellow means 2021

There is lots to learn about chickadees at the marsh and we are excited to have the opportunity to colour band them and share the information with our visitors.  Naturally I am urging that blue  banded chickadee to keep enjoying the sunflower seeds at the marsh feeders for another 5 years so we can perhaps set a new longevity record for chickadees .

2021 time for a Hilliardton Marsh update

 

Well it has been a very long time . The blog kind of disappeared  when i started doing a podcast which you can find if you look for boreal bruce's bird banding blog  but I thought rather than updating on facebook or instagram that a moment back to the blog would be fitting. I really do not know what is the best way to communicate what is happening at the marsh but I kind of know that instagram is limited to a certain number of letters and folks on facebook do not like lengthy posts so here I am poised to get back to the blog for at least a moment. 

We had an interesting 2020 and managed to band spring and fall which also included owl banding. We were in lock step with the health unit and our team with all of the covid restrictions still managed to band  almost 10,000 birds representing 97 species. It would be impossible to update the entire banding season  and i feel guilty as i was somehow hoping to get the podcast going again to update everyone  but perhaps moving forward it will be back to the blog if anyone has an interest in plowing through grammar  and dithering. The plus is for those who have listened to the podcast you do not have to hear me say um.

So lets get to it.  We are lucky to have winter finches  after last winter a complete absence due to so much food in the north but we are enjoying a fresh start to the new year and after  only 4 days of banding  have managed the following totals

5 black capped chickadees

20 common redpolls 

12 evening grosbeaks 

1 hairy woodpecker

5 hoary redpolls 

9 pine grosbeaks 

Not a bad start to the new year especially while we are in lock down and cannot have volunteers out to help us  which leads me to a new development .

Our marsh intern Doug Manner  aka "Dog with a  u" aka Jethro

I would like to introduce any marsh followers to Doug Manners who is our intern. We are very fortunate to have Doug helping us. DOug was hired back in October and will be with us to the end of the banding season in the spring . Doug was our crew leader the summer of 2019 and we are very happy to have him. SO it is basically Doug and I for the winter finch banding season and we shall see how we can do. We are hoping for a good grosbeak season and so far we have not been disappointed  .

In the fall we were very excited to hire Joanne hamilton and chris Sukha to help with the deign of our trail system and on Chris's part to design some art work  that people will enjoy with their kids on the trails. Joanne did an amazing job and once we have the french translation all done we will be looking to  get our trail signage up in the spring . We are very appreciative of funding from RBC to make all of this possible  and I have to say people will be very impressed with the expertise that Joanne Hamilton  brought to the project. if the name Joanne Hamilton sounds familiar she volunteered at the marsh back in 2017 and had some time to volunteers this fall and I was so excited that she could take on the job of coordinating out trail design and signage project. 

Joanne Hamilton facilitating  decisions  by youth about the trail 

Ebird winners

It is always an exciting time of th year to announce last years MurphEbird  winners  the pun makes sense when you realize my last name is Murphy. Moving on, this year the prize goes to Mike Werner  a multi year winner  and the junior award goes for the 3rd year in a row to Kristen Morrow who continues to impress with the number of checklists and her continued passion for birding despite moving on from her formative days bat the 'School of flock" at kerns public school. Honourable mention must go to her siblings  Rebecca and  8 year old Nelson  who are also ebirding and very much want to get ahead of her . Congratulations to Mike and Kristen very happy to see your enjoyment of ebird and your passion for birding 

The morrow Clan  Nelson (left) Rebecca (middle) and Kristen the ebird champ with blue school of flock hat

 

Covid 19

Recently with increased cases our area is now in lock down and the marsh is once again closed to visitors which means volunteers as well. We are hoping to carry on banding as we can and will keep feeders filled. Doug is going to be working on a lot of data and will also be working on our snow shoe trails just in case we have the opportunity to welcome limited numbers of people back to the marsh.

North end shed

Doug has also initiated a banding project we have not tried since 2007. The north end of the marsh is a very unique and I feel very special place. It is so remote that in 2004 we decided to build a cabin to allow us to  access banding possibilities and potentially programming down the road. From his time as crew leader and from taking on the north end for owl banding Doug has been intrigued by the possibility of banding boreal chickadees and Canada jays. The north end is intact boreal forest and has the potential for both of these species. Getting to the north end requires a great deal of effort as it is 3 km from our banding shed and requires access this time of year by snow machine or an hour snowshoe. So far Doug has banded 8 black capped chickadees and 2 red breasted nuthatches. Of great interest to me is that all of the chickadees captured were unbanded  suggesting that the flock at the north end of the marsh is separate from the south which in itself is really exciting. Always something to learn. So far despite setting out lots of feeders there have been no redpolls or grosbeaks attracted to the seed which is also very interesting. We will keep you updated. The last time we had a concentrated banding effort in the winter in the north end was in 2007 so Doug's initiative is valued and will be of great interest moving forward. I think banding 3 kilometers apart will keep the health unit happy. I should not make a glib remark like that I am very thankful for all the health unit is doing and I certainly appreciate all their efforts to keep us all safe . 

Doug and Marie Eve  couples do not have to be a condor wing span apart 

Here the update ends  more information to come  Covid is allowing me some time to get blogging again and I already have something planned a few days from now . All the best stay safe  thanks for indulging me and let me know if you are following the blog and whether it is worthwhile to continue after such a long absence. Bird is the word!! 

Christmas bird count for kids at the Hilliardton Marsh

Saturday January 5th was in the planning for almost a year. last year the temperature was a frosty minus 32  so we cancelled the event because the birdhouse just does not provide enough room  to band  and accommodate 30 plus kids.  It is not  a question of hardiness, Northern kids are renowned for their toughness when it comes to cold. After cancelling our frustration turned to possibility as we  contemplated alternatives to our limited resources. Then it dawned on us that we could use the Hilliard township community hall and a new era for the Christmas bird count for kids at the marsh was born.

     The community hall is only about 3 km from the birdhouse which would mean shuttling kids and families  from the hall to the marsh but considering every challenge is an opportunity we came up with the idea of asking a local farmer Dennis Peddie  about giving the kids a horse and wagon ride. The other big positive of using the hall is now that we are not bound by limited space we were able to include families. in the past parents dropped their kids off and came back a couple of hours later, now we are able to enjoy the day as a family event.

     Everything worked like a charm the horse  drawn wagon ride was amazing and the kids that had been back at the community hall making suet and suet feeders as well as playing some bird games and learning about the history of the Christmas bird count for kids switched with the other group that had been doing a bird count walk and bird banding.

The birding group was taken back by the team of horses and wagon and continued the count as they trundled along the road back to the community hall.

     The highlight of the day for me was keeping families together and seeing the excitement of kids and families enjoying the beauty and marvel of birds. The day  also crystallized for me the need we have at the marsh to have a building that can accommodate the growing need we have to accommodate families right on site. As the interest in the marsh grows so does the need for us to take care of all of our visitors.

The day was just so exciting to see and hear the excitement of everyone and the wagon ride was the cherry on top making the Christmas bird count for kids the best we have ever had. I want to take a moment to thanks first all of the families that brought their young birders out. It is great to see so many parents wanting their kids to come to the marsh and seeing the value in connecting their kids to nature .

 As well I would like to thanks all of the volunteers and directors that helped out at the community hall and the marsh making everything run smoothly. It was also great to have had a bunch of parents help out with the drilling of  the suet logs.

 A big thank you also goes out to the Hilliardton Township recreation committee who made the community hall available.I cannot say enough about how much fun I personally had seeing all the smiles and hearing so much laughter.  Another aspect that I find really gratifying is that a lot of the kids have been coming with their parents either to the bird count or other marsh events and it has been really gratifying seeing these kids reach the age that they are starting to help out or have reached the age that they can now hold birds to safely release them.

The marsh family is growing up together. Needless to say I am already looking forward to the next Christmas bird count for kids but not too fast we want to savour the age of the kids and lets face it we aren't getting any younger ourselves! Hope to see everyone next year.

scooped by Joanne for first snow bunting of the year!!!

It has taken a long time , a very long time to attract snow buntings to corn this year. This year we have also moved to perfect snow bunting country  we are surrounded by with massive fields that grow soy and canola.  Every day I have either been putting out corn or kicking snow off  my corn piles. Joanne never lifted a toe to a pile or wandered out to put golden nuggets of snow bunting magnets on top of the snow, not a kernel!!!  In her defense she has been putting corn out at kerns public  where her and her students who we call the school of flock have been banding buntings for years. Three days ago all of our efforts were rewarded and both sites finally have snow buntings
 feeding on corn so the big question in my mind was who was going to be the first to band a snow bunting this year Me or Joanne?
         Today Joanne was heading to kerns public I had to dash off to the marsh for a few minutes. We live 8 minutes from the marsh so before I left I decided to put down a few traps on the corn knowing I would be back close to the time Joanne would be leaving for Kerns. Joanne left a little earlier than I had anticipated and just as I was leaving the marsh I received this photo.

Before she left for kerns  she watched a small flock of bunting descend around the traps and this  male scooted in a trap and she with a smile on her face gently removed this bird from the trap she banded it and sent me sent me the evidence . I arrived 2 minutes too late she had already left  and it took over an hour for the flock to return giving me the opportunity to band this bird.

Adding to Joanne's delight when she went to check on the corn at kerns she decided to flip her on traps  over  and managed to catch 5 more buntings but the first bird of the new year was this beautiful Lapland longspur!

If there is a lesson in all of this it is that Joanne is the queen of bunting banding, and I am  her banding serf, fit only to feed her birds so that she can band them. A job I am pleased to do with a smile. I am smiling now as I look forward to banding with the school of flock next week as the flock has grown in size affording us the chance to start banding. Allowing us to once again be engaged as part of the cooperative snow bunting banding network. Hopefully some of the birds that the kerns students band will find their way into other banders  traps or even fly as far as Greenland. Such are the thoughts I think of when I pile corn on the snow for Jo. Okay let's be honest, if anything I would be the court jester and perhaps there is yet one last laugh to come in the snow bunting story we are helping write. Stay tuned for the next chapter..... revenge of the jester.

The new year has just begun and my fingers hurt!!!

Well another year is upon us and I thought I would start out with  blog and the hope that I will take the opportunity to blog more often to try and keep people apprised of the movement of bird in our part of the boreal forest.  Now that I am also doing a podcast which is called "bird banter with boreal Bruce my time has been split up a bit but we continue to band at the marsh and the riverhouse site and kerns public so I want to try and keep the flow of information about our banding. You can also find updates on instagram  borealbruce_hilliardtonmarsh as well as the marsh facebook page which joanne faithfully updates often.

Northern Shrike the hook on the top bill warrants careful attention 

So to the birds  this morning I was able to capture a northern shrike that has recently been going after redpolls. It was the first bird banded in 2019 and as they are apt to do, drew a fair bit of blood while I was trying to band it. I recently discovered something that should have been obvious to me but the shrike is the only songbird that is a carnivore. They kill their prey by seizing them with the hook of their top bill and their straight bottom bill and plucking the throat of the unfortunate bird usually ripping their throats open. This move happens quickly and I witnessed this action 4 or 5 times on my exposed fingers this morning.

Erin Oreilly Shelby Hearn and Alex Barkhouse were out for some grosbeak banding  happy day for me. Evening and twp pine grosbeaks pictured here 

    The other bird I am excited about right now is the arrival of snow buntings both at kerns public at in the field right by our river house. We are giving the small flocks some time to dedicate themselves to the feed piles and hopefully we will start banding them when the kids return to school January 7th.
     At the marsh we are catching lots of birds  in the j trap and the other day we were able to band  16 evening grosbeaks 5 pine grosbeaks  and captured over 30 common redpolls. Pine and evening grosbeak numbers are rising  and I am looking forward to a good 2019 with these species this winter
       In closing out this update  we are also looking forward to the Christmas bird count 4 kids happening at the marsh Saturday Jan 5th. the temperature is going to be a dandy -3 so we are looking forward to a great day with the kids and their families

Alex and one of the 16 evening grosbeaks banded today

Until then a very happy new year from me and a big thank you to all of the volunteers and visitors
and supporters that helped make 2018 such a successful year. We accomplished a lot  thanks to the generosity of a lot of people  and  we have even bigger plans  for the coming year. Hope to see you in 2019!!!

stats taking stock of spring and fall number at the marsh

Piliated  #4

Banding  at the marsh there are still surprises as some birds just do not want to migrate. Today I banded a late white throated sparrow and a white crowned sparrow. There are at least two white throats as yesterday I caught one that was already banded and today's bird received a brand new fish and wildlife band.  The other species of note was banding 9 more common redpolls taking our  fall number to 100 banded.Which compared to the  number we banded last winter is not a lot but I believe we only banded 30 all last January so we are quite ahead of not only November but what we see in early winters.

This white crown sparrow looks happy in the snow 

Taking a quick glance of our overall totals for Hilliardton marsh researchers our numbers are great. For the second year in a row we were able to band 100 species. This is the fourth fall we have been able to run our fall protocol which has made a substantial difference. The first two years though we plateaued at 92 and 90 species so last year when we managed 100 we thought it might take us awhile to reach that threshold again and yet here we are again. For the entire area though we banded 107 species which really is something.

White throated sparrow

So we had several new species this year that we have never banded before we caught an exciting 4 Broad winged hawks, a LeConte sparrow, and a white winged crossbill, and American Pipit and a bohemian waxwing  which bring the marsh to 157 species overall. As you can imagine it gets harder to band a new species  the more we have banded  so to get five  new species this year was quite incredible.

Other highlights of the year  included the following birds which we do not often catch I have put the overall number  for all years combined  in parenthesis so you can see why I feel they were highlights. The order is as I remembered them: Solitary Sandpiper(2) Sora (13) Virginia Rail ( 10  ) Olive sided Flycatcher (4 ) Eastern Wood Peewee (2)  Scarlet tanager (2) Nelson sharp Tailed Sparrow ( 7  ) Belted Kingfisher  (4) Boreal chickadee (65, we banded 11 this fall  ) Piliated woodpecker  ( 4)

1 of the 11 we boreal chickadees we banded  this year have to at the french name is better
"brown headed chickadee" 

To help put things in perspective I have added the top 20 for the spring and fall and at a glance one can see how different the seasons are with only 9 species being in both top 20's

Spring Top 20

Species	Grand Total
Myrtle Warbler	378
American Redstart	287
Red-Winged Blackbird	285
Wilson’s Warbler	269
American Goldfinch	192
American Tree Sparrow	157
Yellow Warbler	146
Common Yellowthroat	139
Alder Flycatcher	122
Western Palm Warbler	85
Chestnut-sided Warbler	82
Common Grackle	75
Eastern white-crowned Sparrow	66
Least Flycatcher	64
Magnolia Warbler	58
Swamp Sparrow	56
White-throated Sparrow	55
Veery	52
Cedar Waxwing	40
Black and white Warbler	93

Fall top 20

Species	Number of birds banded
Pine Siskin	1592
northern sawwhet owl	361
Alder Flycatcher	324
White-Throated Sparrow	313
Purple Finch	284
Common Yellow throat	261
Red -eyed Vireo	255
Swamp Sparrow	229
American Redstart	228
Nashville Warbler	211
Eastern White Crowned Sparrow	165
Least Flycatcher	156
Swainson's Thrush	115
Tennessee Warbler	110
Ruby Crowned Kinglet	106
Wilson's Warbler	99
Yellow rumped Warbler	95
Common Redpoll	91
Veery	90
Black Capped Chickadee	86

Clearly there is a lot more  to write about but there is only so much one can take in at a time and my hope is that people will find this of interest. I hope to get all of our data from our start back in 1996 on our website and will blog about that when it comes to pass. That will allow  a chance for perspective and those with an interest will be able to see how it all fits together. In addition Nick Alioto wrote a summary of both the spring and fall banding seasons  and we would most certainly like to get folks access to the hard work he did summarizing our seasons . The other purpose of getting this info on the blog is that it makes our numbers accessible to any with an interest in research and for those future researchers who are thinking of being here for a spring or fall banding season. The boreal beckons to you all.

Redpolls are back!!!

Reflections of an empty banding station.

Mo Sarah and Nick withthe results our last trip to J trap

Well the researchers are gone  and I find myself alone at the marsh and afraid to put too many nets up for fear of catching too many birds.  We had such a phenomenal fall banding season thanks to the passion and energy of our crew of researchers. So thanks so much to  Nick Alioto, Mohammed Fahmy, Bronwyn Robinson and Sarah Biesemier  Needless to say that without them we could never have had the season that we did .

Bronwyn Robinson

My plan in the coming weeks is to  for lack of a better word deconstruct the banding season and go over the many highlights we experienced. The main highlight for me  was how great everyone got along. My main job each banding season is to get the word out that we are looking for researchers and to try and communicate that we need people that can get along and basically play well with others.  I think for the most part anyone who is willing to travel for a boreal banding adventure and live in close quarters with strangers is  going to get along. So almost by default we attract people who are tolerant and share a common passion for birds.

Mo Fahmy

Regardless this season was amazing and in no time we were like a small family and Joanne and I emerged as marsh Mom and Dad  and sometimes like parents we had to shake our heads at some of the things they did. Like the time they tried to turn a fly swatter into a boomerang...... do not ask!!!! Well maybe ask if you see me  I cannot describe it here.  I will always remember this crew with incredible fondness and thank them for  a great job they have all become part of marsh history and lore  and we are  very proud of them all and miss them already.

NIck Alioto

Now ,however, I find myself at the marsh alone without the buoyancy and exuberance of youth. Amigo and I pick days that are not too windy or too cold  and go about the joy of banding pine grosbeaks and carrying on our attempt to colour band  chickadees. Sometimes I just have to pinch myself  to realize that I truly am living the dream of being able to band in the boreal forest whenever time permits. Soon I will be starting the task of lining up the next crew to settle into the  task of spring banding  and I will once again attempt to twist their arms into writing blogs so you will get to know them. For now though I am waiting on Canada post to deliver more  colour bands so I can carry on with the great work that the crew started.  The colour banding and the winter birds we document will no doubt weave their way into a future blog. For now I miss the laughter, and the excitement of seeing the joy in their eyes as they were able to band species which inspired them to travel to the boreal. Afterall, it is the birds that initially united us, and in the end it is the birds that provided our purpose, and yet it is always hard to say goodbye to marsh family.

Sarah Biesemier